Singer In Grocery Store Ordered To Pay Royalties 645
yog writes "An assistant at a grocery store in Clackmannanshire, Scotland, was ordered by the Performing Right Society (PRS) to obtain a performer's license and to pay royalties because she was informally singing popular songs while stocking groceries. The PRS later backed down and apologized. This after the same store had turned off the radio after a warning from the PRS. We have entered an era where music is no longer an art for all to enjoy, but rather a form of private property that must be regulated and taxed like alcohol. 'Music to the ears' has become 'dollars in the bank'."
What's next? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's next? (Score:5, Funny)
No, but whoever publishes it owes songwriters around the world shitloads of royalties for including words from their songs...
They do already. (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.oed.com/subscribe/ [oed.com]
New alternative to censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
and your spell checker gets a module that suggests cheaper words to use in your sentences. And it takes in account the extra tax on words the government doesn't like. You can still write what you want but some things are really costly..
Re:New alternative to censorship (Score:4, Funny)
I r si lolcat languge r cheep in futuar! lol moar invizubul spulling!
Re:New alternative to censorship (Score:5, Funny)
much will depend on how much Clackmannanshire is willing to pay. The Coca Cola company has paid through the nose to give their beverages the highes ranking (the spell checker will recommend as a cheaper option over 'water') . If Clackmannanshire wants to have its name spelled correctly it'll cost them. Until then the spell checker will propose "somewhere near Edinburgh".
Re:New alternative to censorship (Score:4, Informative)
Now I wish I had a better spell chequer than a teacher shouting at me when I was growing up.
I have to ask - was that intentional?
Sadly, yes. See: http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/tenn/SpellingChequer.html [sonoma.edu]
Re:What's next? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's next? (Score:5, Interesting)
The woman had already had her radio taken away as the shop did not have a license to broadcast either CDs (which they had paid for) or Radio (which is already paid for - either by the BBCs 'cat all television license' or by advertising). This form of double payment is incredulous at best, in cases such as these where a claim is being made the business should pay extra to act as a proxy for a service designed to increase add revenue to the industry (Why is the music industry not paying private businesses to play the music in promotion?).
With nothing else to listen too the woman would sing while stacking the shelves. How is that going to encourage business in a local corner shop. I have no doubt she is an aweful singer. Second to that, how is this costing the music industry anything? What losses are they claiming back?
Aweful? (Score:5, Funny)
You meant "awful", not "aweful". I suppose the problem was that you didn't want to pay Concise Oxford?
Re:Aweful? (Score:5, Funny)
He was just trying to avoid paying Oxford University Press by using a free alternative.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's a derivative work. So the royalties are still due.
However, I do believe that 'aful' is actually covered by GPL - and so maybe it is the OUP that is in trouble.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's open-source spelling.
Re:Aweful? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes that's true, but the community prefers GNU/aweful.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
CDs are for personal use, and priced accordingly. That's fair. The radio thing is a bit weird, since radio is all about broadcast, but I suppose that is to stop nightclubs using radio to avoid paying hefty music license fees.
Still, it's horrendous that our common culture (popular songs, catchphrases, etc) are now all copyright. People used to sing folk songs, but now these have been replaced with pop songs. Perhaps we need some creative common songs?
It's obvious that the big distributors are following Micro
Re:What's next? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's obvious that the big distributors are following Microsoft's strategy. Get popular and crush the competition, then extract money from whoever has big pockets.
I think you'll find that has been the music industry M.O. for as long as there has been a recording industry. MS is the relative newb when it comes to such behavior.
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The music industry already has that one covered. They made all radio stations so shitty that nobody wants to listen to them for anything more than background noise, such as when you're driving somewhere and forgot to put any decent music in the car. Besides, no business can gain any proprietary advantage from something that is broadcast freely to everyone. That would be like saying that a restaurant can gain an adva
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, "loser pays" isn't really a sufficient defense against bad litigators who are corporations. Because unlike your average citizen, they have lawyers either on staff or on retainer, so their upfront legal costs are nothing. Even when the citizen wins, they only have to pay the fees for a lawyer that he/she could afford, which makes the whole thing an exercise in cost/benefit calculation, heavily weighted towards litigation.
On top of this, the individual not only has to pay their lawyer up front,
Re:What's next? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about Britannia, but here in the U.S. we the people have a simple fix:
"Amendment 28: Strike the phrase 'To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;'."
If the 50 states want to provide for copyright protection they still can, but the central government's power will be nullified, and the People will again be free to play (or sing) music and enjoy being alive.
While we're at it we should also pass Amendment 29: "Rights and privileges, both enumerated and non-enumerated, shall only apply to individual human beings, not groups or organizations." No more free speech for corporations; no more lobbying by Microsoft or bribes from RIAA. They will have no more rights than a rock or tree.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What does her singing ability . . . or your imagined imapct on her business . . . have to do with this. Assuming you know fuck-all about it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's one of those things in the UK - if you have a business and want to play music to your customers you have to pay a flat royalty fee of around 65 pounds each year. There was a local business (hairdresser) who had kept the radio in the front room and hadn't been paying this fee for 20 years, and was forced to go into liquidation over this.
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It's one of those things in the UK - if you have a business and want to play music to your customers you have to pay a flat royalty fee of around 65 pounds each year. There was a local business (hairdresser) who had kept the radio in the front room and hadn't been paying this fee for 20 years, and was forced to go into liquidation over this.
We have enforcement organizations like that in the US too. We call them the Mafia.
I don't understand how they can make you pay for collecting and translating electromagnetic radiation that is incident upon your property. If they don't like you having their signal, they should stop distributing it for free or provide you with ad-free music for a fee.
Totally, irrevocably, utterly batshit insane (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that fining someone for singing to themself while they work. The idea that this could be in any way the right course of action.
There's no other words/term for it.
Re:Totally, irrevocably, utterly batshit insane (Score:5, Interesting)
This is an example of media control gone nuts. Didn't someone in jest say about 3 years ago that this would happen, somewhere in the world?
Re:Totally, irrevocably, utterly batshit insane (Score:5, Funny)
Listen to "Sean Locke's 15 minutes of misery" sometime. A radio comedy from the 1990s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1lGufUM7xM [youtube.com]
One of the characters is a PRS dream come true. :)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Totally, irrevocably, utterly batshit insane (Score:5, Insightful)
"That's what this is."
This is a natural outcome of applying the concept of private property to information.
Re:Totally, irrevocably, utterly batshit insane (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Last CD I bought was 10 years ago. Ever since then, I download and copy from the library (it’s all legal here, though).
Re:Totally, irrevocably, utterly batshit insane (Score:5, Funny)
Silver lining? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Silver lining? (Score:5, Funny)
when you're happy and you know it, xenu hates you.
when you're happy and you know it, and you really want to show it, xenu hates you.
In all fairness, I should probably be forced to pay people royalties to people who hear my lyrics...
Hoax (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hoax (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly even smart scientists note just how bad they are at covering anything even remotely technical that they know about. And yet assume every other story in that very paper/web site is 100% correct.
Re:Hoax (Score:4, Informative)
If you think it's a hoax, you probably don't know the PRS. The PRS pay their royalty collectors on commission. They have no interest at all in whether the target of their attentions are morally or legally required to purchase a license. They want to sell one to them regardless. This is just the latest of many such news stories of some of the ridiculous extremes their operatives have tried to extort money from people.
Re:Hoax (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt this is a hoax. This happens quite a lot in Australia, but it doesn't usually get quite so much publicity, and it usually happens to night clubs, pubs, private halls, radio stations and similar.
The regulatory body over here which primarially deals with this is called the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) [apra-amcos.com.au], basically if you want to perform a copy righted work, you need to obtain licensing.
For instance I work for a small organization which uses some of it's land for small private concerts, of a maximum of 20 people, generally playing classical works, though occasionally other stuff. Under Australian law we had to obtain licensing through APRA for us to be able to hold these private events.
A friend of the family used to work for them and although they believed in what they were doing (They saw it as standing up for the rights of the artists against profiteering companies), they did have stories on how some businesses couldn't/wouldn't pay the licensing fees, so they monitored the events closely and pursed legal action. Though in most cases the businesses just give up. Though they did have stories of how they omnipotently gave the licensing, regardless of the businesses right to pay, for the good of the people. Both of which made me sick.
Anyhow, I took this person to task on the topic one night and suffice to say we're not family friends with them anymore.
I think it's for the best.
Re:Hoax (Score:5, Informative)
I am a musician. I have had placed I play threatened with legal action because the club hadn't paid ASCAP & BMI to allow them a performing license to allow me to play original music in that venue. And despite me not being represented by BMI I have the "right" to opt in at a later time so they are "entitled" to collect money until I decide to do so. You can opt out of Sound Exchange but BMI and ASCAP are organizations that act on our behalf whether or not we would like.
The whole situation where all musicians are assumed to opt in and then must jump through hoops to get payments is a joke. As a small musician I am not showing up on the radio charts and since I have been in a dozen bands it would be a pain to collect checks for under a dollar for each group. It is not like the clubs report that I am playing there and that the set is all originals and that the BMI should not collect any fees from them that day. So the associations collect their fees and then figure that some major artist was being played because they base their calculations off of radio play.
It is also annoying as it makes it impossible to may a truly free college or internet radio station. Even if I only played my own tunes I would have to pay a fee to do so and then register to get it back minus administrative overhead.
Re:Hoax (Score:5, Interesting)
The way they work is that if a pub puts on bands and the pub is not a member of the PRS, they have to prove that no cover versions of PRS artists were played. This means that a pub owner effectively has to know every song ever registered with a publishing company in order to police this and legally opt out of the system. They can, and will, be asked to provide set-lists in their defence. So what do they do, they stop putting on live music as its too much hassle. What's even worse is that say a band covers one of my songs, then the PRS will collect royalties on my behalf whether I want them to or not. You cannot opt out as a musician either (so those of you who blame greedy musicians for this situation as well, please think again)
Not only are the record companies killing recorded music, the PRS and their ilk are killing live music.
What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a logical extension of current lunatic copyright laws: the IP Barons want a cut every time anyone, anywhere, performs a song they claim to 'own'. The next step will be to require everyone to wear brain-scanners so that they can charge us every time we 'play' a song inside our heads from memory.
The whole concept of Imaginary Property leads directly to this kind of stupidity, because the very idea of being able to 'own' something which has no physical existence is quite simply insane.
Yeah, but remember people (Score:4, Funny)
She's an old f'*k that sings, hence disturbing my personal belief of finding my true love while grocery-shopping.
In the fuits section.
While testing melons.
Juicy... melons ... garrrr ...
Brainwashing (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess it is time to sue the music industry for putting songs in our head.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Whoa, whoa. You have songs in your head?
Did you pay the licensing fee for them? Lawyers are on their way to you now.
The radio makes senes, but not the singer (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone here is going to talk about how outrageous it is for a supermarket to be charged for playing the radio, but the fact of the matter is that they use the radio to create a pleasant environment for their customers, which makes it a tool of commerce. Songwriters are the ones who get compensated for this, and rightfully so: people are using the fruits of their labor (music) to help sell merchandise. The supermarket is a business, and licensing the music is part of the cost of doing business. It has been this way for many, many years; we are not entering a new age of PRS thuggery. Without due diligence on this and other fronts, professional songwriters (who are not, by the by, a particularly wealthy lot) would not have an income. And please don't make the claim that songwriters get paid for years for 5 minutes of work, because they write far more songs that get rejected or fail commercially than are successful. It's a job, and not an easy one.
As for the woman being asked to get a license, yes, that is absurd. Probably the representative of the PRS who made the request was new and overeager to please his or her boss, or was maybe just a douchebag. Who knows. It was a truly boneheaded maneuver.
Full disclosure: I'm a songwriter and a member of a PRS. The money I make a year on songwriting could maybe buy a nice dinner. Without someone looking out for my interests, I'd make nothing.
Re:The radio makes senes, but not the singer (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone here is going to talk about how outrageous it is for a supermarket to be charged for playing the radio, but the fact of the matter is that they use the radio to create a pleasant environment for their customers, which makes it a tool of commerce.
Sounded to me like they'd use a radio in the back that just happened to be in earshot of the front. This is opposed to the full speaker array across the store that keeps the place from being too quiet.
That's more akin to being charged a performance licence for your car radio while your windows are rolled down.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's more akin to being charged a performance licence for your car radio while your windows are rolled down.
Now that is a concept I could embrace, if it serves to keep those young idjits with the mega-bass boom boxes on wheels from cruising my neighborhood and disturbing my peace.
(Insert obligatory "now get off my lawn" meme here...)
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Re:The radio makes senes, but not the singer (Score:5, Informative)
The thing is, the songwriters have already been paid - by the radio station. If it's BBC radio, we've already paid for that music out of our annual licence fee, or it's a commercial station with adverts. Every person in that store has the right to listen to that station already as the broadcast fees have already been paid.
Now that it's suddenly being able to be listened to while on a store premises, it's a 'new' public performance and more money needs to be paid. It's double dipping for the same performance.
You want to charge stores that play personal CDs through to customers? Fine. But leave my goddamn radio at my desk alone.
Re:The radio makes senes, but not the singer (Score:5, Insightful)
I've worked in the past as a musician and songwriter, and I was in radio for most of a decade. I am a published author and editor, and currently make my living as a writer.
And I say this is utter horseshit.
People do not go to grocery stores to hear Muzak. They go there to buy food.
The radio stations and music services already pay royalties in any case, and places that play recorded music in-house have already paid for those recordings. And that's where it should end.
To take your model to its logical conclusion is to suggest that, because I can hear some kid's iPod on the train because he's got it cranked up loud enough to turn his brains into jelly, either he or I should pay royalties, which is preposterous. You may claim otherwise, but this is *exactly* where it leads.
Next, you'll be telling me I should pay a performance fee whenever I read to my daughter from a copyrighted book.
Disclaimer: 'Muzak' and 'iPod' are registered trademarks of their respective owners, and they are completely welcome to them.
Re:The radio makes senes, but not the singer (Score:5, Informative)
ASCAP are trying to push just that sort or nonsense. Thankfully they got a bloody nose trying it, but it's indicative of the way they think:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/10/court-rules-phones-ringing-public-dont-infringe-co [eff.org]
Re:The radio makes senes, but not the singer (Score:5, Insightful)
> Everyone here is going to talk about how outrageous it is for a supermarket
> to be charged for playing the radio, but the fact of the matter is that they
> use the radio to create a pleasant environment for their customers, which
> makes it a tool of commerce.
Yes, and so is the building itself, the paint to make the walls look nice, and much more.
Should the builders, paint manufacturers, etc. get 'royalties' because you use their products commercially?
I don't think so. So "used as a tool of commerce" is just not a valid argument.
Just as with the building/paint/what's in the building, the radio has already been paid for. Via tax (as in NL) and/or the radio stations which pay to transmit. Everyone can freely listen to the radio privately, so why should anyone have to pay to use it in a store?
Re:The radio makes senes, but not the singer (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in college, I worked in a restaurant where initially we played the radio in the kitchen for employees during slow hours. At some point, we received a warning letter, so we got rid of the radio, which only employees could hear, and replaced it with a speaker system that played throughout the restaurant. We then changed the policy so that only cds brought in by employees could be played over the speakers. As far as I know (havent worked there in 3 years), they still don't pay anything for doing so.
Re:The radio makes senes, but not the singer (Score:5, Insightful)
The money I make a year on songwriting could maybe buy a nice dinner. Without someone looking out for my interests, I'd make nothing.
Let me repeat myself from other posts I've made in the past: the fact that you write stuff down on a piece of paper and send it to somebody does not entitle you to a check. Since this is a tech site, I'll compare this to writing software: just because you wrote some software doesn't mean that you're entitled to receive money. I don't care what the size is of the check is. Software writers are at least ahead of the curve and trying various methods to entice people to pay them directly. What I see from song writers instead is "I wrote some stuff that's used somewhere, pay me forever. And I deserve to be paid enough to not have to do anything else."
To that I can only say one thing: fuck off. I write a ton of crap. Some of it is good, some of it isn't, but I know it makes a difference. Some of it is specific to the situation and the client, some of it is generic and useful to everyone in the field. I do not expect to get paid in perpetuity for my writing, and I don't expect some third party entity to hunt down documents that kinda look like mine, or people who have something that looks like my document without proof they paid for it.
That's how it ought to be. You do work, you get paid. Wanna get paid again? Do more work. Which, by the way, is how art used to be compensated. And plenty of awesome work was created through that system - work that is arguably better than about 99.99% of the crap that came out in the last 10 years, when copyright enforcement truly started to get nuts.
Re:The radio makes senes, but not the singer (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're not getting enough money from your work, find another job. As a software engineer, I'm not paid every time code I wrote 2 years ago is used. Builders aren't paid every time a building they've worked on is sold or let. The current practice of rewarding artists every time their music is played is unsustainable, and more and more people are becoming aware of this fact.
It's amazing what people accept... (Score:5, Insightful)
To people outside the UK, charging you for playing the radio makes no damn sense. After all, the radio station already pays for the music (if it's a standard broadcast) or *you* already pay for the music if it's satellite or CD.
The only reason people like the OP can rationalize the PRS is because they're looking at it through the lens of a culture in which it's the status quo. You see this all the time - people rationalizing or even praising elements of their particular culture that MAKE NO GODDAMN SENSE. I'm not sure whether it's done out of a sort of misplaced nationalism, a lack of imagination, or something else. But it's the only explanation I can think of for the defense of the indefensible, whether it's the PRS, the American health care system, or any other country's unique psychosis.
The irony is that for the vast majority of musicians in the UK, the burden the PRS puts on people is vastly disproportionate to the benefit received. Again, take the original poster - would s/he give up that one dinner a year in order to save business owners the incredible hassle of dealing with the PRS? Not to mention the massive amount of money the PRS must spend on enforcement, which reduces the artists' cut. If the PRS moved to a system where royalties for recording sales and broadcast were higher, and eliminated the tax on playing music in public, how much more profitable would they be?
Royalties for radio broadcast music? No way! (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they don't play the radio to make a pleasant environment for their customers. They play the radio to make spending a day waiting on the general public go by a little quicker and to give them something to listen to while they stock shelves or install muffler systems, or whatever else they're doing.
It's music being broadcast for all to hear. Why should the supermarket pay royalties and the guy in the car with his windows down not have to? If they're playing MUZAK or a CD, fine, they should be paying fo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>> Full disclosure: I'm a songwriter and a member of a PRS. The money I make a
>> year on songwriting could maybe buy a nice dinner.
> So, you're not really a professional "song writer"
Actually he might be a professional song writer of the sort "We'll gladly sell
your music for $17.99 per CD! Here's 47 cents for you...."
bastards!! (Score:5, Funny)
Just for this, I'm gonna download TWICE as many mp3 tonight to show those corporate FAT CATS they can't push around the little guy!
Re:bastards!! (Score:5, Funny)
The company apologized (Score:5, Informative)
and I quote the article...
"In a note attached to a large bouquet of flowers they said: "We're very sorry we made a big mistake. We hear you have a lovely singing voice and we wish you good luck." "
Re:The company apologized (Score:5, Insightful)
The company didn't realize anything. They were cowed into submission by an understandably outraged public.
Re:The company apologized (Score:5, Insightful)
They are testing the waters.
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We're very sorry we made a big mistake. We hear you have a lovely singing voice and we wish you good luck.
Which is lawyer-speak for "Our next target will be someone with a lot less public exposure, and much less ability to defend against our accusations in court."
Re:The company apologized (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The company apologized (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the "idiot" is a license salesman paid on commission. S/he has no interest in the rights and wrongs beyond selling as many licenses as possible in order to maximise his/her commission.
What's gone wrong here is pretty similar with what went wrong with traffic wardens (parking regulation enforcement officers) in the UK. At one time they were employed by the state on salary. And they'd see it as their duty to keep traffic moving. And if they saw someone about to park in the wrong place, they would go and warn them. Now, they are outsourced, and paid on commission by the number of parking tickets issued. So now they act as huntsmen, hiding themselves around the corner from where they know people tend to park illegally, and jumping out to claim a scalp as often as they can. On occasion lying about the offence in order to issue a ticket where none should have been issued.
People in quazi-official enforcement roles should be seen as impartial appliers of rules and regulations. They should never be paid on commission. That's what's gone wrong here.
I'm just waiting for... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm just waiting for... (Score:5, Informative)
You got moderated funny.
Read the appalling truth [bbc.co.uk].
Easy solution - Make $$$$ from it. (Score:5, Interesting)
How hard would it be for some enterprising radio station to only play GPL/Free/Whatever-isn't-commercial music that the PRS had no jurisdiction over...
They would quickly be the ONLY radio station that business could listen to ( freely ) and they could sue the PRS if they damaged their business by telling people they couldn't listen to the radio without a license... Since it wouldn't be true of that station. ( Better still the PRS might start to include advertising in their notices... eg, Can't listen to stations, other than Radio-GPL )
A captive market and a litigious company doing them free PR work - It doesn't get much better than that...
I wonder how long the PRS would last before the artists realized they were the real enemy...
GrpA
Re:Easy solution - Make $$$$ from it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Disclaimer: I live in Sweden, not the UK.
But we have got something very similar: our version of the BBC has started making a lot of its material accessible via the web. So suddenly everybody who owns a computer and has an internet connection is required to pay the TV-reciever fee....
Re:Easy solution - Make $$$$ from it. (Score:4, Informative)
- The GEMA (our ASCAP) requires that members register all songs that might possibly generate income with them. GEMA-registered songs cannot be made available for free.
- Once a song is registered it stays registered as the GEMA can't unregister it without violating contracts it has with its customers.
- If you perform your own songs you have to pay a performance fee. If you perform only your own songs and every single artist performing on the venue is listed on the form you get them back, though - minus a service fee.
- If you do manage to put a song on your website that does constitute a public performance and you do have to pay the fee. Again, you get most of it back.
That's just some of the fun GEMA disperses. Oh, and they operate on a "guilty until proven innocent" model - any song is assumed to be GEMA-covered until the creator proves it isn't. So if you make and perform CC music you better have a copy of the license with you.
I agree that songwriters should get compensated for their work but it seems that the associations responsible for that have an unfortunate tendency towards asshattery. Must come with the (arguably valid) business model of charging people for work that already has been done before.
Japan: been there, done that (Score:5, Informative)
A bar owner in Japan was ordered to pay royalties for playing the harmonica for his customers. As far as I know, the decision has stuck.
http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2006/11/10/elderly-harmoni.html [ito.com]
the solution (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution to this entire issue is to download, download and download some more. Bittorrent-style, of course. Do not pay a single cent into this system anymore. And then, when your favorite band comes to town go see and support them and buy their bloody T-Shirt. Make your money go where your ears are and cut out the middlemen!
Re:What the...... (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism? Copyright is a form of government regulation on what would otherwise be a free market. It would be more capitalist to abolish copyright.
(Disclaimer: I do not want to abolish copyright.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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DRM is not a problem if it's not protected by law. There's not a scheme that's been devised yet that cannot be cracked. The problem with DRM is that it is illegal to circumvent it and it has been mandated for some devices. Remove that legal protection and the content providers can add it all they like.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Courts are also a form of government regulation. Without them, you couldn't have contracts. Sounds like fun capitalism to me, not having contracts...
Re:What the...... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not all regulation is created equal. Copyright law and court enforcement of contracts are not equivalent regulations. The former regulation (copyright law) interferes with the natural tendencies of the free market, rendering it less capitalist, while the latter regulation (court enforcement of contracts) does no such interfering.
Re:What the...... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What the...... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really much difference between the current system and outright anarchy when people can sue you to death.
Replace "bastard feudal lord from hell" with "giant corporation", and "peasant" with "individual" and you will find things have really not much changed.
Re:What the...... (Score:5, Insightful)
Replace "bastard feudal lord from hell" with "giant corporation", and "peasant" with "individual" and you will find things have really not much changed.
You really haven't read much history have you? Take a look at what feudal society was like and then try and tell me with a straight face that there is not much difference between what we have today and the feudal system.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What the...... (Score:4, Insightful)
Capitalism? Copyright is a form of government regulation on what would otherwise be a free market. It would be more capitalist to abolish copyright.
What's not capitalist about it? It's treating ideas and expression as a form of capital. It would be very un-capitalist not to exploit that for gain.
Capitalist != Free Markets (Score:3, Informative)
Capitalism? Copyright is a form of government regulation on what would otherwise be a free market. It would be more capitalist to abolish copyright.
What's not capitalist about it? It's treating ideas and expression as a form of capital. It would be very un-capitalist not to exploit that for gain.
He's saying Copyright is not a feature of Free Markets. He's just confusing Capitalism with Free Markets, and they don't require each other.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Copyright and patents existed even in the Communist block, and were enforced, too ... except the state owned most of the "Int.Prop." and a private person could not make much money out of his or her copyrights or "invention brevets" unless they already had a cosy position in the hierarchy of the state, party or one one of the professional guilds.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Intellectual property and physical property are not equivalent and considering the former an extension of the latter confuses the issue. Your physical property rights do not legally bar me from making a copy of your car, should I have the means, only from depriving you of yours.
In such a fantasy scenario, should we extend copyright law to cover the copying of physical objects in that manner
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They are different yet related, and laws which protect physical property forbid me from borrowing it or, in the case of land, traversing it even when doing so deprives you of nothing. (E.g., if I squat in a building you aren't using, or cross your property to get to the other side, etc.) All property rights are legal fictions enforced by governments.
Markets are not "natural." They are human creations and activities, as are polities. People have been creating "governments" for longer than they have been par
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That doesn't really address my argument though. I wasn't arguing that markets are natural, but instead that free markets have natural tendencies. In other words, if we have a market that is a free market, we can expect it to behave in a certain way until it is interfered with by regulation rendering it no longer a free market. The artificiality of markets and laws is not at issue.
Re:What the...... (Score:5, Interesting)
All property rights are legal fictions enforced by governments.
Real property rights often have some justification even without the legal fiction, and they have reflections in social codes.
That taking a piece of property deprives someone of that property can be demonstrated even without any law. There's a strong social code against it, even beside the law. Borrowing on the other hand is much less clear-cut which is also reflected in social code, where refusing to lend something may be frowned upon, even while the ownership is clearly established.
In the case of land there's a wide variation of law; many countries do not have any restriction against crossing someone's land, and more countries seem to be moving towards roaming rights. In some countries you're free to pick all the berries and mushrooms you want on private land; if they want it, they should indicate it through fencing or signs (which is a demonstrable economic gain; unused resources get utilized at no loss to anyone else). Again, a reflection of demonstrable natural situations valid even without the presence of law.
Intellectual 'property' on the other hand, has no such natural expression. Without the actual law there is no demonstrable harm. In fact, the law itself contradicts natural social rules as it prevents maximization of both freedom and experienced wealth, causing demonstrable harm to everyone who is prevented to perform, copy or display things that would cause nobody else harm.
Ultimately intellectual 'property' laws are counter productive and damaging to the economy. Without being founded in social codes they have no real justification and ignoring them is never 'wrong', it may even be a moral duty, even if it may be 'illegal'.
Re:What the...... (Score:5, Insightful)
Intellectual property rights are just an extension of that.
The propaganda purpose of calling it 'property' is exactly to trick people into falling for that fallacy. In reality it is nothing like property, even diametrically opposed in some aspects.
Property rights do not prevent production of copies, they do not enforce scarcity and they do not interfere with other peoples ownership of their property.
Intellectual 'property' on the other hand is essentially a time limited taxation right, a monopolistic right that gives someone the governments blessing to tax and control any copies made. It enforces scarcity, and it takes away the right of everyone else to do what they wish with their property, including copying, modifying and displaying it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
and it takes away the right of everyone else to do what they wish with their property, including copying, modifying and displaying it.
False, copyright is a distribution license, you can make derivative works all day long but you can't distribute them without permission. You have a legal right under First Sale law to modify and resell things you purchase and copyright law only requires that you transfer all copies at the same time. You are ostensibly free to purchase an album, remix it and sell it, so long as you include the original album with every remixed copy, without even gaining permission. I don't know that anyone has ever tried, th
Re:What the...... (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now, one of the political parties in my country has taken the position that we can spend literally trillions of dollars on wars on multiple fronts, tens of billions more on a war against drugs, more on keeping a tremendous fraction of its population in prison, AND THAT DOING THIS WHILE REDUCING THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT TO A TRIVIAL FRACTION IS POSSIBLE.
The other major party just might be addressing these problems a little, and they generally don't advocate actually reducing the government to a tiny fraction of what's needed, but they agree with the first party that they can keep up these programs WHILE EVENTUALLY AVOIDING ANY MORE DEFICIT SPENDING.
Neither is a sane, healthy position, even though one is obviously a full blown delusional psychosis and the other might marginally qualify as just a case of being neurotic enough to only function at a modest percentage of potential, if things stay routine and the stress doesn't get too bad.
It's called cognitive dissonance. A news channel simultaneously says they're the most popular source in the world, AND their viewers are a small, persecuted minority. Businesses say they want free markets but need special government protections for their business models.
That's why I dislike it when people say "in the real world" about these things. If that much of the real world really believes such self contradictory ideas, that doesn't somehow magically make them sustainable. It just means 'the real world' is headed for chaos.
Re:It's sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
It already has. It's called rent seeking, and there's no shortage of examples. Certainly, overzealous copyright enforcement, patent trolling, and the like are examples we commonly see here, but they're by no means the only ones. Look at the ISPs that have crushed proposed municipal wifi plans before they could even get started, by bribing^Wencouraging lawmakers to pass laws against it the moment it was proposed. Another example is the desire of ISPs to charge for "all you can eat" plans while then throttling what you can actually do with them. That's the same type of behavior we're seeing here.
There are plenty of examples outside the tech sector as well. We had an article a few days ago about predatory student loan practices, and that's been studied quite a bit already. Telecom/cable companies' frequent monopoly/duopoly structure in most areas. The inability to become certified in many areas without a college degree even if you can prove your competence (benefitting, of course, colleges). The list goes on and on.
I'm not honestly sure that's not a consequence of trying to apply capitalism to a resource (information) which is naturally not scarce, and can only be made so through draconian rules and enforcement. With computers, it's not difficult at all to perfectly and quickly replicate most types of information, there's no real scarcity of it at all, only artificial, legally enforced scarcity. If I were in the business of selling nothing dressed up as something, and the only way people paid me was when they were forced to, I guess I might be tempted to overuse force too.
The problem with capitalism... (Score:4, Insightful)
It requires scarcity to function.
Which is why people are knocking down houses in the USA...
e.g.
http://www.yidio.com/unsold-houses-knocked-down/id/395665281 [yidio.com]
http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=19580208 [msn.com]
If demand is ever satisfied, the value of the product tends to zero and therefore it is impossible to make profit or to pay the loans which make up our monetary system. This is why there will always be poverty, always be homelessness, and is of course insanity and stupidity of the highest order.
Silvio Gesell [wikipedia.org] identified this particular fundamental problem (and proposed a solution) with the nature of money itself nearly 100 years ago.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's sad... (Score:5, Funny)
They're vastly overcompensating for lost revenues.
Too right, how many people would say "I was going to buy that music but now I can just go and listen to the guy stacking shelves in the grocery store to sing it instead"?
Re:And the birds hired copy write lawyers (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmmm, sounds familiar... Oh yes! That's what the Taliban did to a whole country.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"We have entered an era where music is no longer an art for all to enjoy"
It is if you make it yourself.
But she did sing by herself and got threatened by PRS.